Community Helping Cape Elizabeth Afghans

As a mother of three young children, I’ve watched with horror these past few weeks as the situation in Afghanistan unfolded and quickly deteriorated. “How would you feel,” I asked my eight year old daughter, “if someone came into your school one day and said you couldn’t study there anymore because of the simple fact that you are a girl?” “That would be horrible!” she exclaimed.

My heart has broken watching the news. I keep thinking, what if that was me? What would I do to protect my family, my children? What lengths would I go to get my family to safety and to create a safe home for my kids? Would others help me, even if they didn’t know me?

Where do you even begin in a situation like this? My husband and I discussed sponsoring someone, but the humanitarian parole application fee for one individual is $575. That’s a lot of money for someone that you’ve never met.

I reached out to four Afghan families in Cape Elizabeth who have been working tirelessly to get friends and family out of Afghanistan. My Afghan friend told me that his very good friend and his young family (two boys ages eight and six, and two girls ages four and three months) were successful in getting out of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan to a military base in Virginia. He is in the process of fixing up a house for them and hopes to welcome them to Maine in two weeks after they’ve completed quarantine in Virginia.

That’s where I, and you, come in. This family fled the only home they’ve ever known in order to provide a safe place for their children to live, to play, and to learn. They left with, literally, nothing but the clothes on their backs.

Funds are urgently needed to supply them with basics and essentials as they begin to build their new life in Maine. My hope is to use half the funds to pay for the essential items to get them set up in their new home, and then to pay for their housing when the public support is depleted. Some of those initial costs are:

The other half of all funds raised will be used towards applying for humanitarian parole for family members of the four Afghan families from Cape Elizabeth who are still in Afghanistan.

With deepest appreciation,

Emily Mavodones, Cape Elizabeth